Too many climate plans for G-8, too little consensus
China follows US outline with program of its own. But neither one contains a specific emissions target, which Europe wants.
The world's most powerful nations have been pumping up their image as fighters of global warming in the days leading up to the meeting of the influential G-8 countries in Heiligendamm, Germany, that ends Friday.
Last week, President Bush announced that he had invited leaders of the 15 nations that emit the most heat-trapping gases and are the largest consumers of energy to gather to discuss solutions.
China followed Monday by laying out steps it said it would take to curb its emissions, largely through greater energy efficiency and developing alternative energy sources. Neither the US nor China, which rank No. 1 and No. 2 in greenhouse-gas emissions, committed to cutting emissions by any certain percentage, something that European Union countries, such as G-8 host Germany, have been urging.
That means that G-8 leaders continue to be sharply divided over how to go about reducing greenhouse gases. Despite some sunny talk, any quick or substantial agreement at this week's summit seemed unlikely.
One way to cut emissions, at least in theory, is to fund programs elsewhere that reduce emissions, such as reforestation projects or biofuel plants that replace fossil-fueled ones. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), part of the 1997 Kyoto accord agreed to by most countries (but not the US), is one such program.
But in a two-part series in Britain's The Guardian newspaper June 2, that program came up looking drastically flawed and far from ready to be held up as a model. The newspaper charged that it had found "serious irregularities at the heart of the process the world is relying on to control global warming" – the CDM. The program, the newspaper said, "has been contaminated by gross incompetence, rule-breaking, and possible fraud by companies in the developing world...."
A related Guardian report went on to say:
"[E]vidence collected by the Guardian suggests that thus far [the CDM and a similar carbon-offset scheme] have earned fortunes for speculators and for some of the companies which produce most greenhouse gases and yet, through a combination of teething troubles and multiple forms of malpractice and possibly fraud, they have delivered little or no benefit for the environment."
Page: 1 | 2 
